Chess Wisdom and Aphorisms #7

Folly is always bold. Simple advancing moves in chess can actually be quite reckless and full of danger for your King. Developing or attacking moves often leave the King wide open to counter attack by the opponent. How to overcome this fault. Advance, yes, but at the same time discover whether you can advance without danger. So first choose a candidate move. Now does the opponent have a one move reply that compromises your own King‘s safety? If not then you can play with safety. Do you see? Chess is not like life, it is better than life! You can actually see on the board, if your planned move improves your position without affecting your King safety. This means you must consider the replies of your opponent to every planned initiative you make, but only with respect to your own king safety.

In the following game, White has compromised his King with an unorthodox pawn structure. It is in fact, that familiar strategy for medium to strong players, the tripled pawn flank attack. It looks bold, but is quite dangerous. My opponent now tries to start activity towards my King. But this leads only to a tactic in which I have a one move reply that compromises my opponent’s king and leads to a quick mate.